1. Field
One or more embodiments relate to a microfluidic device having a microfluidic structure and a method of loading a sample into the microfluidic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various methods of analyzing samples have been developed in a variety of application fields, such as environmental monitoring, food inspection, medical diagnostics, etc. Related inspection methods require a lot of manual work and various equipment. In order to perform inspection by using a predetermined protocol, a skilled practitioner may manually perform various operations, such as loading of samples several times, mixture, separation and movement, reaction, centrifugal separation, etc. These manual operations lead to errors in inspection results.
In order to quickly perform inspection, a skilled medical technician is necessary. However, it is difficult for even a skilled medical technician to perform some inspections simultaneously. Nevertheless, fast inspection results are very important for fast emergency measures when diagnosing emergency patients. Thus, an apparatus which simultaneously, quickly, and accurately performs required pathological inspections is required.
Even in related medical pathological inspections, large and expensive automation equipment is used, and a relatively large amount of inspection materials such as blood, etc. is required. In addition, it takes a long time to perform medical pathological inspections. After inspection materials are taken from a patient, the patient receives the inspection result 2-14 days later.
In order to overcome these problems, minimized and automated equipment which quickly analyzes inspection materials taken from one or more patients if necessary has been developed. As an example thereof, when blood is loaded into a disc-shaped microfluidic device and the microfluidic device is rotated, serum separation occurs due to a centrifugal force. Separated serum is mixed with a predetermined amount of dilution buffer and is moved to a plurality of reaction chambers within the disc-shaped microfluidic device. Different reagents are loaded into the plurality of reaction chambers in advance according to items of blood inspection and react with the serum so that a predetermined color is represented. Blood analysis can be performed by detecting variations in the color.